TEA CO2 laser-induced damage of low-thickness TiN coatings

In this work the changes induced by TEA CO laser with different pulse shape on low thickness TiN coatings were considered. The TiN layer (0.85 mu m) was deposited by sputtering. The bombardment of coatings was performed in the air with TEA CO2 laser operating in multimode regime with energies 7.5-78.3 J/cm(2). The coating properties and laser induced damage after 20 pulses (threshold) and 340 pulses were analyzed by SERI and EDAX. The results have shown that the beams induced changes to form an alloy layer with a specific composition. It was shown that the morphological features and damage induced during the interaction depend on the intensity and the pulse shape. The bombarded area consists of three zones. The central zone is more pronounced with tail free pulses. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.